salary. bought a million dollar yacht. and five corporate jets. i'm proud of what i did at hp. [ male announcer ] carly fiorina. outsourcing jobs. out for herself. [ barbara boxer ] i'm barbara boxer and i approve this message. on the broadcast tonight, the egg problem. after this country's biggest outbreak of salmonella, we'll show you what the iowa egg farmers in question said today about conditions there. the west wing. what a new book says about the deep divisions in the obama white house during the war debate. and some of it is not pretty. the cost of care. what if there was a drug that could save your life but you couldn't afford it? some are taking drastic measures. and education nation. controversial new film that americans will be talking about. what does it say about charter schools, teachers union, our kids and superman? "nightly news" begins now.

captions paid for by nbc-universal television good evening. for years a lot of us bought them without thinking much about them. but then you tend to think about them when cases of salmonella start galloping across the country as they just did. so today in washington, they heard testimony from two of the largest egg producers in this country. millions of people have purchased their brands without knowing it and still will. the problem is, 1,600 people got sick recently in 22 out of 50 states. there could be many more who passed it off as a passing bug. 500 million eggs were recalled. today, we got a glimpse, for better or worse, into these two big producers. our own tom costello starts us off from washington. he's in a store there tonight. tom, good evening. >> reporter: good evening. in fact, most grocery stores nationwide, all stores should be free of those bad eggs. today, the iowa farm at the

center of this mess suggested that a third provider, a feed supplier, may be responsible for the salmonella that has led to the recall of 500 million eggs. on capitol hill today, the man at the center of the biggest salmonella egg recall ever said he's personally sorry for the outbreak. >> we apologized to everyone who may have been sickened by eating our eggs. >> reporter: for 30 years, records show austin jack decoster's egg farms have run afoul of health, environmental and animal cruelty laws in several states, paying millions in fines. today, congress released photos taken by fda inspectors inside decoster's egg farm in iowa. after the recall of half a billion eggs was under way. the photos showed dead hens, dead mice, and barns bursting with chicken manure piled eight feet high. even as the company insisted it takes health and sanitation seriously. >> it sounds like to me both of you are refusing to take responsibility for a very poor

facility. >> this is a very big operation. we have a certain way we go about running it. >> reporter: the man who runs hillendale farms also involved in the recall invoked his constitutional right to remain silent. >> i respectfully decline to answer the question. >> reporter: investigators estimate 1,600 people and perhaps thousands more, have been sickened nationwide. >> i was so dehydrated they could not find a vein to insert an iv in. >> my doctors told me i would have most certainly died without aggressive intervention. >> reporter: carol got sick after eating at a restaurant in colorado. >> you could say i'm angry. i'm angry that they've gotten by with it and haven't cleaned up their act. >> reporter: the fda also came under fire for failing to ever inspect the farm before the outbreak. >> fda had jurisdiction over egg

production farms but we didn't have the standards to -- against which we could inspect. >> reporter: those new egg standards didn't take effect until july, after the salmonella outbreak was well under way. this was not a good day for wright county egg. the hearing did not go well. today it released a statement saying clearly it has to do more. brian? from northwest washington across town we go to the west wing of the white house. specifically the president who works there. he was elected on a slogan of "yes, we can." and he came into office on a wave of change sentiment. barack obama has said many times, we are the ones we've been waiting for. we are the change that we seek. but a new book by veteran journalist bob woodward is painting a picture of a white house full of egos and political calculations and arch enemies, just like the kind we've seen in years past. and it all surrounds the debate over the war in afghanistan. our own andrea mitchell is here with us tonight with more on this. good evening. >> reporter: good evening.

if the quotes in bob woodward's book are accurate, then the obama white house pits political advisers against the generals. and caught in the middle, the commander in chief, making life and death decisions on war and peace. there is more back stabbing in bob woodward's new book than a shakespeare play. the vice president says of richard holbrooke, he's the most ego tistical bastard i've ever met. although the right guy for the job. the national security adviser, jim jones, cams the president's inner circle the water bugs, the mafia or the campaign set. general david petraeus tells aides david axelrod is a complete spin doctor. most of this infighting over the war plan for afghanistan. finally, the president blows up. november 25th, 2009, only days before announcing his decision, the military asks for 4,500 more troops. woodward writes the president erupts saying, i'm done doing this, we've all agreed to a plan

and we're going to stick to that plan. i haven't agreed to anything beyond that. six days later, his big speech at west point. >> the review has allowed me to ask the hard questions and to explore all the different options. >> reporter: the next day, the president explains why he added a timetable to begin withdrawing, telling republican senator lindsey graham, i can't let this be a war without end, and i can't lose the whole democratic party. >> you really want to see this kind of conflict and disagreement. through history that usually makes the best strategy, especially in a war. >> reporter: but the book reveals the success of the war strategy rests on afghanistan's hamid karzai, who u.s. intelligence reports is increasingly delusional and paranoid, manic depressive. the u.s. ambassador to afghanistan reports to the vice president, karzai is off his meds, he's off his meds. largely absent from the blood letting, hillary clinton. woodward says axelrod argued, how can you trust hillary for the cabinet? the president replied, i think i

know her pretty well. if she's going to be on the team, she's going to be loyal. woodward interviewed all of the key players for the book. including the president and vice president. he quotes the president as telling him he continues to believe that he can absorb a terrorist attack, even while doing everything we can to prevent it. that statement has angered conservative critics like liz cheney, who calls it an alarming fatalism that the president needs to explain. brian? >> hold that thought, because we wanted to double team this. our white house correspondent savannah guthrie is here with us in new york. because the president is at the u.n. in new york, what's going on at this days long gathering? >> this is his second meeting at the u.n. general assembly and he'll give a status report on u.s. foreign policy tomorrow with a real emphasis on what the u.s. is trying to do with these direct talks in the middle east. >> and about this book that came out, what's been the reaction considering they invited this journalist in, cooperated from the traveling white house? >> it's fascinating.

on the one hand, it's probably bad or at least awkward for some individuals inside the white house because of the infighting that andrea describes. as far as the larger narrative, frankly the white house is embracing it. they think this shows a president who is in command, somebody who went through a deliberate process, leaned hard on the military saying we need an exit strategy. and they make no apologies for considering the politics, all of it recognizing in their view you have to have america behind the war if you want congress to fund the war. >> which leads us to a final question. this does conveniently lay out all the moving parts and their argument for history. but i heard dave gergen make the point today, what happened to keeping national security deliberations private instead of inviting in a leading investigative journalist? >> we've seen this before in other white houses. mostly focused on domestic and economic policies and some national security issues. this does raise the stakes, because the major players who are negotiating with other countries now have really the

scabs pulled off of all of these wounds and that's damaging and there's going to be some bleeding. >> thanks to you both for joining us here in new york tonight. now we turn to the upcoming midterm election, which has already turned a number of incumbents into lame ducks. alaska senator lisa murkowski was on her way to the same fate, she lost the gop primary to tea party candidate joe miller. but now she's decided to run as a wright-in candidate. something her own party does not seem too happy about. our own lee cowan has our report tonight from anchorage. >> reporter: the last frontier is perhaps the last place you'd think republicans would still be midterm squabbling. but senator lisa murkowski is getting boos from her gop colleagues for relaunching her senate bid after she already lost. >> i'm not splitting the ticket here, i'm going to leave the ticket. i believe as so many alaskans

believe, that i will win this race. >> reporter: her opponent is joe miller. a fairbanks lawyer who came out of nowhere last month to beat the freshman senator. >> he painted her as a liberal, too liberal for alaska and scored some points and her response was pretty weak to inept. >> reporter: miller got a lot of money from the tea party express and the endorsement of sarah palin, who told voters in a new national ad this week, races like his are sweeping the nation. >> forcing both parties to change the way that they're doing business. >> reporter: miller's message is ultraconservative, campaigning to end what he called the welfare state by phasing out social security and medicare. views murkowski calls extreme. >> describing me and our voters as extreme, and there's been worse words used to describe us, she's painting a broad brush over alaskans as a whole. >> reporter: murkowski says a wave of last minute support forced her back into campaign hold. but even republican pollsters say that's not the way the

process works. >> it's hard to say i'm listening to my constituents to run again. wait a minute, didn't they just speak? yeah, but i didn't like what they said. >> reporter: she admits it's a long shot. no one has successfully mounted a senate write-in campaign since strom thurmond did it more than 50 years ago. but she has a lot of money and a lot of name recognition. something most write-ins don't. lee cowan, nbc news, anchorage, alaska. >> nbc news learned that republican leaders in the house of representatives will unveil a pledge to america tomorrow morning. 21-page document that outlines what they will do if they regain control of congress. they are promising to cut taxes, cut federal spending back to '02 levels, repeal president obama's health care reform law, and end government control of the mortgage giants fannie mae and freddie mac. democrats immediately blasted mostly the tax portion of the

pledge, saying it will increase the deficit by giving tax cuts to millionaires. one more note on health care reform. it's been six months now since congress passed the obama plan. and so major provisions of it go into effect tomorrow. among them -- dependents will now be covered under their parent's insurance plans up to age 26. children under age 19 can no longer be denied coverage because of preexisting medical conditions. and insurers will no longer be allowed to put lifetime limits on coverage. when our broadcast continues on a wednesday night, life saving cancer drugs that cost a fortune. whether you can pay can become instantly a matter of life and death. a new documentary about fixing public schools that's making waves tonight.

think about this, you have a potentially terminal disease and there's drug to make you better and you can't afford it. it happens all the time. the choices are people into some new bad choices in what is still a difficult health care system to awful, so is the u.s. economy, forcing a lot of understand. our report tonight from our chief science correspondent robert bazell. >> reporter: gleevec has been hailed as a real-life cancer fighting miracle. it cures a form of leukemia called cml, and an intestinal tumor. >> five or ten years ago there were no therapies and people uniformly died within one to two years. now people are living 10, 15, perhaps 20 years. we don't know how long.

>> reporter: so the tumors are gone? >> the tumor went away. >> reporter: for this pharmaceutical marvel, it has a drawback that's becoming increasingly important in the worsening economy. this is gleevek. it comes in pill form. it costs $4,500 a month. the patient must take it for life. if the patient stops, the cancer returns. >> i just wanted to be well. >> reporter: that's what happened to holly reid. she stopped taking the drug after her health insurance plan changed. >> what i have to do is budget to be able to pay out $5,000 for my first month's supply. >> reporter: but they say some of their patients have been forced to stop taking the drug for financial reasons. >> patients are embarrassed to tell you that they didn't pay -- they can't pay for their medication. they're embarrassed to tell their spouse that they made that decision. >> reporter: novartis, who makes gleevek, has a program to help people pay. a single person who has no

insurance and makes less than $55,000 a year can get the drug free. doctors say they can usually help people find some assistance. holly reid is back on her drug and doing fine. but doctors say others who stop will die and their patients need to be aware of the risks. robert bazell, nbc news, san francisco. when we come back, a rare event in the skies tonight, and on this year's list of the richest americans, a very young guy who had a very good year.

"forbes" magazine is out tonight with its new list of the 400 richest americans. and the top three are the same three as last year. must get boring. bill gates retains the number one rating with a net worth of $54 billion. warren buffett second with $45 billion. larry ellison just getting by as ceo of oracle, third with $27 billion. the person who gained the most over the past year, facebook founder mark zuckerberg whose health -- whose wealth -- i don't know about his health, i hope it's good -- wealth grew 245% to a reported $6.9 billion. we love the heavens around here, and so fans of the night sky know that and they write us all the time. and a viewer in colorado named jack cheznut wants everybody to

remind everyone about the harvest moon. that's his thing apparently. looks as big as a dinner plate in the night sky these days. that's early evening tonight in philadelphia. this moon apparently is a special one, because it happens on the same day as the autumn equinox. when the sun passes directly over the equator. and an added bonus we're told both jupiter and uranus will be visible tonight. so get out there and look up and hope it's not cloudy as it looks like it's going to be here. scientists at the university of utah announced today they discovered a new dinosaur and they're calling it cosmoceratops. perhaps a character on an ancient "seinfeld." it's a relative of the triceratops. a plant eater with a lot of horns. 15 horns arrayed on a huge head. researchers say the horns probably weren't useful for defense, instead probably all about attracting a mate. always works. when we come back, a new film getting a lot of attention

because of what it shows us about this country's schools.

a new movie opens friday night here in new york, and it

stars real people. they are kids and teachers and parents and union leaders and they have one thing in common -- education. this documentary could be the talk of this big summit we're hosting here next week called education nation. it's controversial. it's powerful. and it arrives just as the debate over education turns red hot. our education correspondent rehema ellis has our report. >> i don't care what i have to do, i don't care how many jobs i have to attain, but she will go to college. >> reporter: it's a film about the dreams of millions of families told through the eyes of a few. >> i want to be a nurse, i want to be a doctor. >> reporter: "waiting for superman" shows how five kids and their parents, from harlem to silicon valley, struggle to get out of failing neighborhood schools and into public charter schools. daisy, a fifth grader, whose parents dropped out of high school, is desperate to avoid her district middle school in l.a. >> by the time she leaves stephenson, only 13% of her

classmates will be proficient in math. >> reporter: the cruel reality is, the children's dreams are tied to the luck of the lottery. the director, davis gugenheim, also directed the oscar winning documentary about global warming, "an inconvenient truth." the truth about his latest film is the topic scared him. >> i felt like a lot of parents. you read the paper and there's a lot of noise. it's complex. >> reporter: he had a change of heart while driving his kids past three public schools to drop them off at a private school. >> that idea that my kids were having a great education but the kids in my neighborhood were not, that idea haunted me. >> reporter: but the president of the american federation of teachers portrayed in the film as a staunch defender of the failed status quo, says the movie is unbalanced. >> there's not one public school pictured in this film, and not one public schoolteacher.

and we have great public schoolteachers around this country. >> let's get started. >> reporter: other educators say the film could be a wakeup call. the 2010 version of the 1960s images of the civil rights movement. >> people didn't want to make change until they saw black people having dogs sicked on them and water getting hosed on them in the street. you see that movie, you'll feel the same way right after. >> reporter: if people don't have any children, let alone in public or private school, why should they care about the issues you're discussing in the movie? >> some of these kids are more likely to go to prison than they are to college. and we're going to pay for them one way or the other. >> reporter: anthony, a washington, d.c. fifth grader, knows why education matters to him. >> i want my kid to have better than what i had. >> reporter: and "waiting for superman" makes a compelling case. >> and the last number? >> reporter: that america's children shouldn't have to wait for better schools. rehema ellis, nbc news, new york. >> and a reminder, next week we'll talk all about this. nbc news will host education

nation, a nationally broadcast indepth conversation about improving education in this country, starting sunday, september 26th on the networks of nbc. for now, for us, that's our broadcast for this wednesday night. thank you for being here with us. i'm brian williams. as always, hope to see you back here tomorrow evening. good night. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com good evening. >> police about to lose what may be one of its biggest gang prevention tools. parents are angry about cuts that could lead to the police athletic league. >> practice is going